Moonlight, Murder, and Small Town Secrets

by K C Hart

  Katy stood quietly in line behind a young man talking on his phone. He looked vaguely familiar and when he turned his head to the side, she realized it was Tripp Brown. His loud and forceful tone made his conversation impossible to ignore.

  “I told you I’ll be right back; I’ve just got to pick up this medicine. Undoubtedly you can take care of things long enough for me to do that.” He raised his empty hand in the air as if the person on the other end of the phone could see him. “Look, Momma, just tell him to wait ten minutes or come back later when I’m there. Well if he won’t wait, let him go somewhere else. We ain’t gonna starve if we lose one customer. Just do what I said okay?” He mumbled a curse and shoved the phone in his back pocket.

  Her eyes shot daggers at the back of his head. His grandmother had said that she didn’t really care for her spoiled grandson. Katy had thought the elderly woman was exaggerating, but not anymore. It sounded like she had a good reason to think less of the man.

  Tripp stepped up to the counter next and Katy eased up in line as well. “Mr. Brown, do you want the teaching on the Xanax and Wellbutrin?”

  “Kid,” Tripp smirked as he glared at the young clerk. “If I did, I would be talking to old man Friend and not to you.”

  “Well,” the girl said, keeping her stiff smile in place, “please sign the refusal line on the screen.”

  He paid for his meds and hurried out of the store. Katy stepped up to the counter and smiled at the young redhead. “Susan, do you have John’s medicine ready?”

  “Yes mam, I pulled it from the bin when I saw you in line.”

  “Thank you, dear. You do such a good job for your Pawpaw. I know he’s proud to have you working for him.”

  “I try Mrs. Katy. He wants me to go to pharmacy school and take over the business one day, but I don’t know if I’m going to yet.” She slipped the white bag of medications across the counter and leaned in toward Katy. “Have you heard about Laney Finch?”

  “I’m afraid I have. I feel so sorry for her poor family.”

  “Me too, me too. Especially those three little boys. Pawpaw heard that they have Coach Finch at the sheriff’s station questioning him.” She looked from side to side then back to Katy. “Do you think he did something to Mrs. Finch? It seems weird that she would just fall over dead while cleaning somebody’s house.”

  “I imagine they just have him there because he is her next of kin.” Katy took the bag from the girl and pulled out her debit card. “We sure wouldn’t want to start a damaging rumor about Coach Finch when he’s trying to handle this tragedy.”

  “Oh, no mam,” Susan gasped, stretching her big china blue eyes even bigger. “We don’t want that. I guess somebody will tell us what happened when the sheriff figures it all out.”

  “I’m sure someone will dear. Don’t you worry.”

  She left the pharmacy and got in her car. The Finches lived just a few blocks from the pharmacy. Maybe she could just drive by their house and see if the red truck was in their driveway. That couldn’t hurt anything. She turned left at the stop sign and headed toward the subdivision. Their house was always getting toilet papered during the football season since Jake Finch was the coach. She slowed the car as she neared their house. There were bicycles, toy trucks, and a T-ball stand in the small front yard. A sporty newer model jeep was parked in the driveway, but there was no sign of Laney’s baby. She turned at the next stop sign and headed back out of town toward her home. That was enough nosiness for one day.

  Katy pulled her Civic under the carport beside John’s truck. Good, she didn’t want to come home to an empty house.

  “Hello, Columbo.” John smiled stepping onto the carport. “I hear you had an unusual day.”

  “Yeah, that’s one way to describe it.” She stepped into his embrace and felt some of the tension leave her neck as she laid her head against his shoulder. “It wasn’t as bad as Laney Finches.

  “This is true. How are you holding up?” He eased her back and looked down into her face. “You need ice cream?”

  “Of course I need ice cream. I need ice cream when I lose my car keys, much less find a dead body.” The corner of Katy’s lips turned up just the smallest amount as they walked into the kitchen. “I wish we hadn’t finished off that Rocky Road.”

  John reached over her head and opened the freezer above the refrigerator. “I didn’t get rocky road, but I did get Death by Chocolate and some chocolate brownies. I didn’t think about how tasteless the name would be on a day like today until I’d gotten home and put it in the fridge.”

  “Yeah, I guess Moose Tracks or fudge ripple would’ve been a better choice, but I’m going to eat it anyway.”

  John warmed their brownies in the microwave then topped them with the ice cream while Katy poured two tall glasses of sweet iced tea. They both took their treasures and went to relax in the recliners in the living room.

  “How did you find out I was at Laney Finch’s murder scene?”

  “Todd called to make sure you were okay. He said the sheriff quizzed you down before he let you go. By the way, check your phone. It must be on silent or dead or something. I’ve been blowing it up for a couple of hours trying to get in touch with you.”

  “Oh, I forgot to turn the ringer back on after the admit. Sorry.”

  “I was getting kind of worried,” he said, scooping a spoonful of ice cream from his bowl. “I was about to send the army out to track you down.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Misty saw your car at the drug store and happened to tell Mike. After that, I figured you had just lost your phone or something.”

  “I don’t see how anybody can keep a secret in this town,” she said, pointing her spoon at John.

  “Well with the flower shop being across the street from Friends, it wasn’t that hard for Misty to notice your car.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t have any secrets anyway.” Katy took another bite of her ice cream and brownie. “It’s after five. What do you want for supper?”

  John scraped his spoon across the bottom of his bowl to get the last few crumbs of his sweet snack. “Probably nothing. What about you?”

  “I’m good. I feel like I’m going to pop now. You fixed me a huge bowl.”

  “Well let me just eat those last couple of bites for you.”

  “Aww, ain’t you just the sweetest thing,” Katy said, handing him the bowl. “Here, help yourself.”

  While he finished off the rest of their chocolate supper, she told him about her day. She described the marks on Laney Finch’s neck and shared her theory that the girl had been strangled by someone standing in front of her. John listened without any comments.

  “So how did the fishing trip go?” She looked at him and sighed. “Anything unusual happen?”

  “Nope, pretty boring stuff. We didn’t catch a thing. Since we don’t have church tomorrow evening, we’re going over to his dad’s big pond off the five-eighty-seven.”

  “Well good luck. I think I’m going to find a book to read. Maybe some Jane Austin.”

  “That sounds safe enough. I sure don’t want you stumbling across any crime scenes in our back yard.”

  “Okay, Mr. Smart Mouth.” Katy grabbed a throw pillow from her chair and threw it at his head. “I’ll try not to. I guess I could go fishing with you and Mike. Maybe yaw could kill a few fish if I’m in the boat with you.

  John caught the pillow and stuck it behind him. “Maybe so, but you better bring that book to keep you company. We don’t talk much while we fish.”

  “Naa, I think I’ll pass. I would be as red as a beet if I sat out in the sun in that dinky little aluminum boat all afternoon.”

  “Suit yourself.” He dropped the spoon into the glass bowl with a clink. “I’m full as a tick. Why did you let me eat so much?”

  “Better you than me, honey.”

  While John went to the kitchen with their dishes, Katy pulled out her phone and checked her missed calls: twelve from John, two from M
isty and one from Todd. Good grief. John’s had started with a simple, “Call me,” but had worked their way into longer slightly panic-driven sentences about needing to hear her voice. The final one was after Misty had seen her at the pharmacy.

  “Hey you. You scared me half to death. Anyway, Misty saw you at the drug store, so I guess you’re alright. I’ll see you when we get home. I love you. Oh, and learn how to turn on your phone before you make me have a stroke or something. Bye.”

  Katy wiped the mist from her eyes. Sweet talk and chocolate ice cream all in one afternoon. She loved that man.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sunday was a sad day for the church. Even though Laney hadn’t attended since she married nine years ago, her three boys were there most Sundays with their grandparents. None of the family were at church that morning. Misty said Laney’s body would be at the funeral home Monday evening and buried Tuesday at two. Katy would have to go to the Pig to get some canned peaches for her cobbler.

  As expected, her Sunday school class was more interested in talking about their football coach being locked up in jail about the stoning of Stephen. She allowed this to continue for a few extra minutes then passed out the iced cookies while she told them the Bible story. After the lesson was finished, they had prayer for the Finch family and asked for a special blessing on the three little boys.

  “You know,” Victory said, reaching for the last cookie, “I never have loved Coach Finch, but I didn’t think he was a woman killer.” Most of the girls nodded their heads up and down.

  “We don’t know what happened to Mrs. Finch,” Katy said, looking across the table at Victory, “and we sure don’t know who’s to blame in all this.”

  Victory took a small bite of the soft cookie and let the crumbs fall onto the front of her hot pink T-shirt. The pale pink icing from the cookie smeared her bubble gum lip gloss. “I guess not, but I heard that they picked him up for questioning and he’s at the jail.”

  “I know, but the sheriff’s just doing his job trying to gather information,” Katy said. “That doesn’t mean your coach has done anything wrong. Besides, where did you hear all of this from?”

  “On the radio, of course.” Victory looked at Katy with one eyebrow raised. “Rob Clay said the police are wondering if this killing is connected to that other one and if Coach Finch is some kind of woman killer.” She looked around to her classmates for support. “They couldn’t be saying all of that stuff if they didn’t know something was going on.”

  All the girls’ heads turned in unison toward Katy. Why couldn’t they be this interested in something useful, like their lesson? “First of all, wondering about something and knowing something are two entirely different things. If that radio person had really known what was going on, he would have said it plain and simple. It sounds like he’s just trying to get a story people will listen to without actually telling a bald-faced lie.” Katy paused and held up two fingers. “Second of all, when we start gossiping about all of this, we’re going to make things worse. Just a few minutes ago we prayed for that family and now we’re sitting here talking trash about one of them. How do you think that makes God feel? We ask him to help them while we mow them over. Think about poor Mrs. Amanda and Mr. Johnnie. Do we want to be saying such awful things about their son-in-law, especially when they’re grieving over the death of their only child?”

  “No, I love Mrs. Amanda,” Victory said quietly, eyes downcast. “When I have to sell stuff for Beta Club, she always buys a lot. She says she remembers when Laney was selling that stuff and how hard it was to raise money to go on the trip, so she buys two boxes of the Countries’ Best Chocolate right by herself. I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt her.”

  “Well try to remember that Victory and help keep the gossiping to a minimum.”

  “I’ll try, but it sure ain’t gonna be easy when we go to school tomorrow.”

  “I know.” Katy looked around the table at each face. “But all of you girls just try to stay out of all this okay? I’ll be praying for you and yaw pray for each other too.”

  They agreed to try, although a couple agreed half-heartedly. Unfortunately, gossip was something that started at an early age in most people and if they didn’t learn to at least attempt to control their mouths they could do just as much damage at the age of thirteen as they could the age of thirty-three.

  John stepped into the aisle of the church sanctuary to let Katy into the back pew beside him just as the music began to play. “You skipping the choir?” he whispered.

  “Yeah. I just need to listen today.” The extra talking in her class had made her get out a little late so she didn’t have time to speak to anyone before church started. That was just as well. She was sure she already knew what everybody was talking about.

  “Scoot over honey,” John whispered, poking her in the ribs. “Somebody wants to sit by us.”

  Katy moved down a few feet. She leaned over to see who the person was and almost squealed out loud. Joe Phobs stood on the other side of her husband shaking his hand and grinning like a schoolboy. She smiled so big she was sure her back molars were showing. She leaned around her husband and hugged her welcomed guest, then turned back to sing. The goofy-looking smile remained on her face for the rest of the service.

  At the end of the sermon, the pastor announced that there would be no service tonight. He informed the people about the arrangements for Laney’s funeral and encouraged everyone to reach out to this family as they were having to deal with such a hard thing. He also reminded everyone to please support the family in other ways such as not speaking ill of things and people when it was not our place to do so. Katy wondered if all the classes this morning had to try to curb the gossip the way she had with the young girls.

  After this, he did as he always did, and asked if anyone else had anything to share before everyone was dismissed. To Katy’s utter shock Joe Phobs raised his hand and stepped out of their back isle. The pastor shook his hand when he reached the front and Joe whispered in his ear. The pastor nodded in agreement to whatever Joe had said then stepped aside to allow Joe to address everyone.

  “A lot of you know me, but for the ones that don’t, my name is Joe Phobs. I used to come here every summer as a kid for VBS on the church bus. That’s about the extent of my churchgoing. My momma tried to teach us about God at home, but, well, yaw probably know how young’ uns are.” Joe looked around at the crowd of people who were listening. Most had an encouraging smile on their faces which made it easier to continue. “I want yaw to know that me coming up here to talk to yaw ain’t easy. Anyway, what I want to say is this, I got picked up and thrown in jail for the murder of my girlfriend Jessa Williams week before last. I told the authorities I didn’t do it, but they were sure I did. I ain’t gonna go into the details about it. Being in the Lord’s house doesn’t seem to be the place to talk about all of that. At the time, I thought I was done in. I didn’t think a soul in this town was on my side. But then some people from your church started showing up. At first, it was just one of your ladies, then her husband.” He looked to the back of the church and nodded at John and Katy. “Then I told Mr. John how lonesome I was and how I wasn’t getting any visitors and the man started coming by almost every evening and bringing by yaw’s preacher. Next thing I knew, I had different ones of yaw visiting me off and on every day. Most of yaw prayed with me and just talked to me and let me talk to you. Momma said a couple of you older ladies have even come by to see her this week.” He paused again and smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “I have about talked myself out. I just wanted to let all of yaw know how much I appreciated it. The preacher here said that this is just the church doing what it is supposed to do. I don’t know about all of that, but I do know that me and my family are grateful for what you did to get me through that rough spot, and I don’t want to forget it.”

  Joe turned to look at the preacher who stepped up and placed his arm around his shoulders. He whispered something in Joe’s ear, and he nod
ded his head in agreement. The preacher had everyone bow their heads as he prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for getting Joe back home. They walked to the back of the building and stood together as everyone passed out of the back doors.

  Katy picked up her Bible and started to ease from the pew into the congested aisle. So, her husband had been doing a little more visiting than she had known about. She had been so wrapped up in her own world with these two murders that she hadn’t even bothered to find out what he had been up to. He was like that though. He often went out of his way to help people and never told a sole. If anyone tried to give him recognition for anything he had done, he got uncomfortable and would change the subject. She was so proud of him.

  She had been discouraged when she came out of her class this morning. Everyone seemed to be focused on the wrong thing and wanting to talk about the Finch’s marriage problems and speculate if Coach had killed his wife. She had heard several little clusters of conversations going on as she had made her way from the classroom building to the sanctuary and had intentionally ducked her head and kept walking, so she wouldn’t be drawn in.

  After hearing Joe though, her faith in her church family was restored. She knew they were like her. They could easily get caught up in the talk going on all over town about who did what to whom; but in the end, they would try to do the right thing. Joe was proof of that.

  She nudged her husband in the shoulder as they walked toward the car. “Did you know he was going to do that?”

  “Yeah. He called me this morning and told me that they had let him out last night. He asked if it would be okay if he thanked everybody for supporting him. I told him that it was a great idea. I was going to tell you, but you were late getting out, so I didn’t have a chance.”